By Gretchen Millich, WKAR News
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkar/local-wkar-961753.mp3
EAST LANSING, MI – Pamela Rasmussen travels around the world studying birds and recording their calls. She's an assistant professor of zoology at Michigan State University. Now Rasmussen has compiled her recordings and thousands of others on a website that offers free downloads of bird calls. WKAR's Gretchen Millich asked her to describe the site.
Pamela Rasmussen: We're in the process of creating a global bird sounds data base that's available freely over the internet. Everything that's on it is free, and people are able to download the recordings to their MP3 players or whatever. The data base now has over 11,000 individual recordings of various types of bird sounds, including mainly calls and songs, but also mechanical sounds that birds make such as wing noise, etcetera. It is now up to over 3,500 species which is over a third of the world's birds.
Gretchen Millich: Could you show me your website on the computer?
Rasmussen: The website is at AVoCet.zoology.msu.edu, and we have a home page where we show some information about the project and how it got started and what the goals are. And then we have some topics such as how to interpret sonograms and other visualizations and some hints on making good recordings. But the meat of the website is under "browse recordings."
This is a Jamaican Crow, a recording by Brian Schmidt who works at the Smithsonian. He's involved in a project to survey crows, because their habitat has declined precipitously so the species is somewhat endangered.
(To listen, visit: avocet.zoology.msu.edu/recordings/11538 )
Rasmussen: Unlike our crow, this bird has a lot of very comical vocalizations, including some vocalizations that you heard there that sounded rather crow-like, but then all these chattering and laughing vocalizations that distinguish it.
Millich: Who is going to want to use this website? Who would be browsing bird calls?
Rasmussen: Well, mostly bird-watchers, but also ornithologists and conservationists. So, this kind of website can be extremely useful to people who are doing for example a biodiversity survey, and they may never have been to that place before. So they need to know what everything sounds like, because they need to be able to make accurate identifications before they go.
Millich: Do you have any bird calls on this site that local birdwatchers might recognize?
Rasmussen: Oh definitely, there's a lot of the local birds already on here. We're still working on making the local collection more comprehensive, but everything common is on here already.
Millich: Can you give me an example or let me hear an example of that?
Rasmussen: Sure. I will show you a Kirtland's Warbler, which is not exactly local, but it's Michigan's special bird. I went to Point Pelee last spring in May, and there was a Kirtland's Warbler there. There are only a small number of them, so people don't normally see them in migration, but we were lucky enough the day I was at Point Pelee that there was one male there. People told me about it, so I rushed over there and they said he was singing so I was really excited and I waited around, waited around, the bird didn't sing, didn't sing. It foraged and then it would rest, then it would forage and then it would rest. And I had the tape recorder on the whole time, and of course we were right along the shores of the lake, so there was a lot of surf noise and people noise. Finally, when I had the tape recorded on finally it sang. It was just one little brief snatch. So this is it.
(To listen, visit: avocet.zoology.msu.edu/recordings/7830)
The last note is actually not that species. That's a Red eyed Vireo at the last. But the normal song is quite a lot longer and more elaborate, but that's all I've got so far. I would have to go up to the breeding grounds and make a special trip to go up there and get recordings.
Millich: Or someone listening to this story will rush out and get one for you.
Rasmussen: Yeah, maybe somebody will contribute one. That would be great.
To listen to bird calls and see photos and maps of bird habitats from around the world, go to avocet.zoology.msu.edu